Beginnings
He awoke in a kind of den out in the forest, curled up in a small ball of thin, gangly limbs. Dawn was breaking as he brushed moss from scratchy clothing and scrambled out of a meagre shelter of woven branches and ferns.
Yesterday had been one of Mother’s bad days, when she couldn’t look at his dark hair and deep green eyes without seeing a monster in his place, when his father’s face overlaid his own. The cold wind made itself known and he shivered, hoping that there would be fewer of those days in the future. Winter was fast approaching and their family of two did not have enough money to spend on a spare blanket to keep away the frostbite.
Cautiously he approached the small village stranded between the local stronghold and the wildness of the forest he had spent the night in, careful to keep to the deep shadows cast by the dawn. He drew enough attention already, the bastard child who struggled to conceal his strangeness, without letting on that even his own mother sometimes could not stand the sight of him.
That she loved him he did not doubt. Her love burned through every winter that his belly warmed whilst hers stayed empty, through every hiss that urged his magic silent, that toxic power that surged under his skin. Children like him were poison, their gift and curse damning everyone they touched.
Had she loved him less he would not have survived his first year, smothered under familiar hands. Would never have learned to keep his humming magic quiet and watchful and hidden, smooth as water rather than ash coating choked lungs.
None of the villagers would have blamed her, even without crying witch; his conception was not spoken of but it was known all the same. He had seen it happen to less fortunate babes with magic fingers and weeping parents.
But she did love him, even on the days when she could not look at him. And so he did his best to care for her in turn, as much as a boy of six winters was capable of. He did not begrudge her the days she needed him away, and took care not to be seen on his return.
He reached Mother’s hut without incident and crept inside on feet silent as a wolf’s. She did not stir, collapsed on their straw pallet, even as the dawn light strayed inside through the crack in the door. Frown tugging at the corner of his mouth, he tucked their threadbare blanket more tightly over her to combat the cold breeze and stole away again, taking with him their water bucket and the small mountain of clothing belonging to what passed for nobility in the neighbouring stronghold.
The river was not far, though the clothing kept spilling out of the basket and proved heavy enough that he had to stop twice and rest. It was a large burden for a child so small, but he persevered, bolstered by his mother’s tired face and the red cloak he had wrapped twice around his bony shoulders.
He huddled deeper into it as bare feet splashed into the icy water, the current tugging on his ankles. He knew better than to play with it; the river might look smooth and sparkling, but it’s hidden power could easily steal away the unwary.
He had seen that happen before, too. Death was no stranger here, in a peasant village barely significant enough for a name. Were it not for the local lord’s stronghold providing work none of them would make it through the winter. Even with Lord Elyes’ “generosity,” families struggled; he knew that many of his serfs had no other recourse, lacking the funds to move elsewhere, so scarcely paid enough to make ends meet.
Sighing, he put the thoughts firmly from his mind. There was no changing it, after all. There was very little he could do for his mother’s prominent ribs or blistered hands, worked near bone, until he was older and strong enough to support her. Until he was less in danger of slipping and having his magic condemn them both.
There was this, though. Leaving the basket perched on the riverside, he wedged the bucket into a gap in the rocks and then began the slow, laborious process of scrubbing the stains from each piece of heavy clothing. The soap stung his hands, although they quickly became numb under the freezing current, and dashing the fabric against the washboard was hard work that left him panting after only a few minutes, but at least the exertion warmed him a little.
If he did not do this, Mother would have to. And she always felt awful after nights like this, caught up in guilt when she realised it was her son and not her attacker that had been driven away. Better that she rest whilst she could, before winter really set in.
Food was already lean enough that he doubted either of their ability to drive off a sickness should one come. And if his mother died… mostly villagers looked out for one another, since life was hard enough without petty quarrels, but he was Strange, Other. Without her, he had no chance of survival. And without him… he knew she hung on for him, that she was a ghost of who she had been before his conception.
They were a family of two against the world. It had always been enough before. He prayed it would remain so.
(He was not entirely sure that prayer was useful. After all, what kind of god would inflict magic on their family after everything his mother had already gone through? But praying was harmless, and he had enough problems hiding his oddities without being seen as Godless too.)
The repetitive motions and the earliness of the morning had lulled him into a kind of trance, mind pleasantly hazy, so he startled when loud, raucous laughter overwrote the rushing of the river. His head jerked up and he nearly dropped the shirt he was scrubbing.
Quietly, so it would be concealed beneath the river even if the laughter stopped, he let out a hissed curse. Foul enough that his Mother would have soaped his mouth, if it had been in a language she was capable of understanding. Since it was not she probably would have clipped him around the ear instead, which was justifiable since anything magic-adjacent was dangerous but there was only so much that he could help.
The curse was not for nearly losing the shirt to the river, although that would have been devastating. Paying for a missing item of that quality could easily tip them over the edge of starvation. But mostly the curse was for the source of the laughter, the two boys racing around the edge of the path. He knew those voices.
Harper and Oswin were both older by over a season, birthed at harvest time rather than the dead of winter. Their families were better off too, but that was not saying much since practically everyone in the village was more stable than he and his mother, having either two wedded parents or a wider support network of family members as a shield against misfortune.
Possibly by virtue of their greater resources, both boys were near double his size despite having less than a year on him. They were also non-magical, or if they were not then they did a much better job at hiding it than he had ever been able to. Which made their lives infinitely easier.
They also both took advantage of their size and lack of Oddness. As often as possible. Especially when they were alone, as they were now, with the smaller boy so vulnerable stranded in the middle of the water with his Mother’s valuable laundry.
Sadly, this was not an unfamiliar position. Usually he tried to time his chores so that there were at least adults around to stop them going to far if he could not arrange them for when Harper and Oswin were themselves occupied. But Mother had looked so tired that morning, and if he had left it for later then the guilt would have kicked in and she would never have allowed him to take on such a physical chore.
The two were not his only persecutors. Far from it. But they were the two who took his status as something personal and treated him the worst.
“Well, well. If it ain’t the little bastard,” Oswin sneered, their laughter coming up short as they noticed him in the water.
Ducking his head so his expression was in shadow whilst keeping the both of them in view, he contemplated. The words didn’t hurt –‘bastard’ was technically accurate and had been thrown at him so many times already that it had all but lost its ability to sting. But his response needed to be carefully calibrated.
Keeping his head down did not work, as ‘acting better than them’ only riled them up further. However, biting back at them also did not work, even if it was satisfying, driving them to greater heights to ‘teach him his place’ whilst also providing the opportunity to go crying to parents who already thought badly enough of he and Mother.
“Hello, Oswin,” he eventually settled on.
Of course, that was when Harper joined in. “What, am I not good enough for a greeting?”
“Hello, Harper.”
Said boy scoffed at the deadpan response, clearly unhappy with his tone but lacking anything offensive enough to react to. It had taken many confrontations to hone that kind of response. Mother scolded him for provoking them when she heard it, but it was not as if there was anything he could actually do that would make them hate him more.
Well, actually, there was magic. But he was neither stupid nor suicidal, no matter how satisfying it would be to set a snake on Harper or trip one of them over or curse Oswin speechless.
“All alone out here?” Oswin mocked, as if under a façade of concern. Except there was nothing that could be called pleasant in his voice. “Poor little bastard boy.”
“Mommy finally throw you out?” Harper chimed in viciously. “Finally realise what a freak you are?”
Now that did hurt, considering the night he had just spent in the woods. And that word – freak. He had always hated it, despite it being tangentially true. He had magic, after all, which made him different. Odd.
Freakish, perhaps, but despite the many difficulties it had brought to their lives he had never been able to bring himself to hate his magic. Hate the troubles it brought them, yes, and the need to hide, but magic itself… magic was wonderful, as much a gift as a curse. It had saved their lives, warming them through the cruellest winters, as much as it would condemn them if anyone ever found out.
At least the taunt had been thrown at him enough that he was able to school his face to mirror the river, giving them not one hint that the words bother him. “I am doing something nice for my Mother,” he said, voice rippling with things unsaid. “What are you up to this morn?”
Harper screwed up his face into a scowl, knowing that there was an insult in there somewhere but not quite able to discern what. Mother was highly educated by the standards of their village, although he did not know why, and on cold nights they huddled together and she passed down what she knew.
Unwelcome at most games amongst the village’s children, he instead spent the time learning what he could of stories and history and maths, and even what few Latin characters his Mother remembered. He was not quite literate, but on the rare occasion travellers passed through he bargained labour for lessons and was a good deal closer than most knew.
“We’re playing. People with friends do that.”
He hummed noncommittally, taking out any frustration on the shirt that had nearly been dropped. The white linen was finally clear of the dubious brown stains all down the side, so he began squeezing the water out of it.
Since verbal taunting was not making a dent, Oswin clearly decided to go down a different route, clenching his fists as he approached the river’s edge.
Why could they not just leave him alone? He had never understood their need to needle him, but this morning it was particularly unwelcome; he was still cold and tired from his night outside and just wanted to finish the washing and go home to Mother.
Oswin finally reached where he had left the basket, which contained the clothes he had already cleaned. He was around halfway through the pile, and frustration pooled through the younger boy as the older reached into it. He also dug his feet more firmly into the rocks, tensing his muscles in preparation.
He was not a great fighter, being small and lean, but he was fierce and scrappy and had plenty of experience of being on the wrong side of childhood squabbles. He had gone to Mother bruised to high hell enough times to learn where even a small jab could hurt.
The other two might be easily able to overpower him but he could make them work for it – and get subtle revenge later on in a variety of ways that kept him from exploding in frustration. Oswin’s mother was very particular about how their house was organised and Harper kept a secret stash of things his father did not approve of that could oh-so-accidentally find their way into view.
(This might, of course, be why Harper and Oswin hated him particularly fiercely. But they had started it. It had taken many confrontations for him to become frustrated enough to need to do something – and it was a need rather than a want because frustration was one of those emotions that stirred up his magic. It had been find another way to channel his anger or risk revealing himself, and he could never do that to his Mother.)
“Now what have we got here?” Oswin bent down and picked through the basket’s contents, shifting through the wet fabric until he lifted out a particular item. A thick, red cloak. It had kept him warm on the way down to the river, but once he had splashed into the shallows it had become a dead weight as water soaked the base, heavy enough to drown him if he tripped.
It was also the finest piece of clothing in the entire load – worth a whole month’s salary for a peasant laundress and her son. It was probably finer cloth than Oswin had ever touched in his life, since neither of his parents worked for Lord Elyes.
Verdant eyes narrowing, the six-year-old glared at Oswin with the full force of a mage’s fury. His magic buzzed beneath his skin even as he gritted his teeth against it – he could not afford to use it, but neither could he afford for anything to happen to that cloak.
It had been foolish to take it out here when he was alone, he belatedly realised. He would never do such a thing again. But that did not help him now.
Even Harper seemed a little cautious, actually taking a step back at the younger boy’s fury. “Oswin…” he muttered.
But Oswin completely ignored the death waiting in startlingly green eyes. “Bit fine for you, ain’t it?” He sniggered as if this was the height of comedy.
It was not funny. Even Harper’s mouth twisted slightly – taunting the strange baseborn boy was one thing, but you did not mess with a family’s livelihood. Even if the child was odd in a way that sent hairs rising on every pious man’s neck, there were some things that were just not done. Not if they did not want to join him as village pariahs.
“C’mon, Oz, this ain’t fun,” Harper muttered, kicking at the muddy trail. “Let’s go play Knights and Ladies.”
Oswin did not let go of the cloak. Instead he turned and stepped up the riverbank in order to flap it in the breeze. “It’d be more fun with this.”
Choking down the magic was becoming more and more difficult by the second. He swore he could feel the river’s current slowing, swirling around his feet, hissing like a serpent. But Oswin had not truly done anything yet, and for a moment he even dared to hope that Harper (how strange to think him an ally, even just for this moment) might draw the other boy away.
“You’d have to explain it to Ma,” Harper pointed out. “I ain’t touching anything that belongs to the fancy folk, and red ain’t subtle. You know she’d hear.”
For a moment, everything seemed as if it was going to work out. Oswin’s shoulders slumped at his very good point, and although his scowl deepened he seemed to have given in. “So boring,” he griped. “Fine.”
So saying, Oswin turned and threw the cloak at the younger boy.
Which was when everything went wrong. The fabric was thickly woven to be warm and keep rain off, but that also meant that it had been heavy to begin with and became much more so after being submerged in the river in order to wash it. Even Oswin had felt it when he had lifted it, which was one of the reasons he had capitulated so quickly, but thrown at a boy half his size and already leaning against the current of the river…
There was a large splash as boy and cloak both tumbled backwards into the deeper, faster-moving part of the icy water.
“Oswin!” Harper yelped, voice high with sudden fright. His friend’s eyes were equally wide; all the village children were very aware of how dangerous the river could be, and Oswin had not meant to knock him in!
The older boy hesitated for only a second. He had never intended to knock the younger in, but now that it had happened…
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered, turning his back on the river without waiting to see if either boy or cloak would surface. When Harper only stared, face bone-white, he snapped again, “Harper! Let’s go.”
“But…”
“Do you want to fall in too?”
Already a distance downstream, a face broke the surface of the water just for a moment, gasping desperately. Every inch of his body was screaming at the sudden shock of cold, and it was all he could do to grasp at a breath before he was plunged under again.
The closest he had ever been to swimming before was floundering in the shallows in the hottest days of summer. He did not know how to swim. Everything was panic and terror, and a desperate bubbling under the skin that he recognised, had spent most of his life choking down.
Even drowning, even dying, he was aware of the presence of Harper and Oswin. Their muffled voices, a glimpse of their tunics.
He held on, grappling frantically with his power even as his hands flailed at the surface of the water, achieving little except draining his energy. His magic was desperate to save him, but if someone saw then he would be dead either way, and the magic way would drag Mother down with him.
Finally, finally he broke the surface once more to an empty riverbank. Whether he had been swept around a bend or his tormentors had abandoned him to his fate the boy actually did not care. All that mattered was that he was blessedly alone and he let out a keening gasp as his magic finally flooded from his iron control, surging in such a rush that it was almost painful, and then there was air in his lungs and purchase under his feet, the water yielding to his will.
An unnatural current swelled to life, warmth bubbling through his veins as the water cupped him in a gentle hand and swept him as softly as Mother’s arms to the side of the water, where he rolled onto the bank with exhausted gratitude.
Lacking the energy to even begin to stand, his head instead lolled bonelessly to the side. The river swept on past, unchanged by its brief passenger, and he tasted it on his tongue as he swallowed. He lacked the energy to look away.
Even moving his eyes took significant effort, which he discovered when they caught onto a flash of red tumbling past. The cloak that had started everything. The cloak his Mother could not afford to lose.
It took steel determination to nudge a hand in its direction, but he had never lacked for will. Despite already being passed his limits, despite his youth and limited secret practice, his magic obeyed his desires. The water eddied and rippled, and the cloak floated closer and closer, until the river bore it right into his clutches, anchoring it around his fingers.
He passed out without consciously registering the crunching of sticks nearby.